TN AG Skrmetti Joins 27-State Coalition Supporting Texas Border Defense Barriers

NASHVILLE- Today, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined 26 other states in a letter to the Biden Administration supporting Texas’ border defense.

“Securing our border isn’t a political or ideological issue, it’s a matter of basic governmental competence,” Attorney General Skrmetti said in a statement. “The record-breaking number of illegal entries has strained resources in states and cities across the country, even those far removed from the border. Texas is fulfilling its duty to enforce the law and protect its citizens given the federal abdication of serious border enforcement. America would be better off if the federal government worked toward collaboration rather than confrontation with the states that are working to solve the problem.”

Under the current Administration, more than six million illegal aliens have crossed the southern border—a flood nearly the size of the population of Tennessee. As a result, Americans have seen a deluge of deadly drugs enter the country as the fentanyl crisis continues practically unabated. There has been influx of human trafficking and increased encounters with members of the terror watchlist.

The current Administration has actively made the crisis worse. In just one month, Border Patrol agents acting on the Administration’s orders cut Texas’s border defense wires more than 20 times. In one case, it even used a forklift to raise the wire and usher in more than 300 illegal aliens.

Since the current Administration has failed to do its job and secure the border, States like Texas have stepped up to protect their citizens. A federal district court found that Texas’s border defense wires reduced illegal border crossings by more than two-thirds. Those barriers protect not just Texans from millions of illegal border crossings, but the rest of the nation.

The States demand that the Administration either enforce the laws that secure the southern border or allow States like Texas to do so themselves. Tennessee joined the Iowa and Utah-led letter, along with Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the Arizona State Legislature.

The letter can be read here.

###